1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a gateway application programming interface (API) between a World Wide Web (WWW) server and one or more computer programs external thereto, and more specifically, to an object-oriented programming (OOP) based adapter and handler framework for Web server extensions.
2. Description of Related Art
A variety of different WWW server systems are known which are used to serve or deliver data between client software or browsers connected to a WWW server on a common network. For example, IBM, Microsoft, and Netscape each market WWW servers. In addition, each of these servers use a variety of mechanisms to add in functionality not in the basic server software and link with other servers containing other information content.
Currently, several standard gateway interfaces exist for interfacing with a WWW server and one or more of these other servers. These interfaces include the Common Gateway Interface (CGI), the Netscape Server API (NSAPI), and the Internet Connection Server API (ICAPI).
However, each of the interfaces shares the same drawback: non-portability. An extension written for one API requires significant re-work to port to another API. Worse yet, an extension written to a given API requires modification if moved to a different operating system (and NSAPI and ICAPI currently exist only on a few platforms).
Thus, a need exists for a way to eliminate or minimize the need to rewrite extensions for each API or operating system. In addition, it would be advantageous to insulate extensions from changes that may occur in the API itself (e.g., new versions of the API). The present invention provides a solution to these and other problems, and offers other advantages over the prior art.